\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 The MusΘe dÆOrsayÆs collection has been housed in several different locations. Initially it was installed in the Luxembourg
Museum, and then it was transferred to the Jeu de Paume, a pavilion in the Tuileries Gardens. It finally found its place in the Gare dÆOrsay, a gigantic iron and steel construction surmounted by a glass dome located on the left bank of the Seine. It w
as built as a railroad station at the time of the 1900 Universal Exhibition. Unused since the sixties, it was restructured and laid out as a museum by Gae Aulenti and inaugurated in 1986.\par
The core of the museum is its collection of Impressionist pa
intings. This was initiated with Claude MonetÆs acquisition of ManetÆs \i Olympia\i0 on behalf of the Luxembourg Museum, where works of modern art were housed. Yet this did not suffice to break down institutionsÆ and many criticsÆ indifference to the
Impressionists, and when Caillebotte bequeathed his collection of works by Manet, Renoir and CΘzanne to the State, only about half of them were accepted. Later on a number of other important donations enlarged the collection of modern art, such as the b
equest of ManetÆs \i Le DΘjeuner sur lÆherbe\i0 from a private individual in 1906 and that of a valuable collection of paintings by Degas, Monet, CΘzanne and the young van Gogh in 1911. The museum was further enriched by legacies from the families of a
rtists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec in 1902, Bazille in 1904, Renoir in 1923 and Monet in 1927, and private collectors, as well as by acquisitions made by the \i Amis du MusΘe du Luxembourg\i0 .
